Memory

				
				I remember when
				                                      my sister was born.
				                                      I have never told
				                                      her for

				                                      I never thought to before.
				                                      I will permit my poem to hold
				                                      that memory of that morn-,
				ing, father, who had been

				                                      at the hospital,  
				hourly, waiting for her birth
				returned. My sister, brother,
				                                      and I were on Cartwright

				                                      mountain to stay the night
				                                      if necessary, and it was, for mother
				                                      labored long the way the earth
				                                      is noncommittal 

				to a seed’s need to burst
				                                      from the soil, 
				before its season to grow
				is come.

				Some
				                                       six days ago, 
				my sister’s toil
				got versed

				as poetry along 
                                dementia lines.